...In other words, Pachauri is a member of India’s tiny economic and religious elite. In that context his imperiousness makes perfect sense. When he’s on his own turf, few people are likely to ever challenge or criticize this man.

But as chairman of the IPCC, Pachauri plays a role on the world stage. Journalists such as myself, who live thousands of miles distant and are the product of far more egalitarian milieus, don’t know the first thing about his social standing or religious caste and consider them irrelevant in any event. In the big, wide world Pachauri’s elite status is no shield whatsoever.

This explains a number of things that have puzzled me. Now that I understand that Pachauri’s life has been lived in a cocoon, I realize that nothing in his previous experience taught him that it isn’t sufficient to claim to be “working on an objective assessment of all aspects of climate change.” In order to be taken seriously, a person actually has to behave as though they are objective.

No one has ever demanded that Pachauri walk the talk before. This is a brand new concept for him. And he has been an extraordinarily slow learner.